Fredericksburg Planning Commission Recommends Approval of Princess Anne Street Townhome Development
Project is located across the street from Mason Dixon Cafe and includes 21 single-family attached dwellings.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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The Fredericksburg Planning Commission voted 6-to-1 this week to recommend approval of a 21-townhome development and the adaptive reuse of a historic structure at 2015 Princess Anne Street.
Applicant Past, LLC is requesting a special use permit and special exception to develop the property, which is located across the street from Mason Dixon Cafe in the city’s Creative Maker District. Commissioner Mary-Margaret Marshall cast the vote against recommending that City Council approve the request.
The units will range in size from 1,900 to 2,560 square feet. The special use permit request is to allow for a building height of up to four stories and 50 feet for Building Type 2, as it is defined in the city’s Form-Based Code, which applies to the Creative Maker and Commercial Highway districts.
The general development plan submitted as part of the application shows that there would be 12 lots with this type of building. The code allows for this building type to be up to 40 feet and three stories by-right, and taller with the a special use permit.
The special exception request is to permit deviations from dimensional and frontage standards laid out in the Form-Based Code. Specifically, they would allow the developer to decrease minimum lot sizes and widths, decrease set-backs, and increase the percent of units allowed to front on formal open space.
Some of these requests are driven by the fact that the rear of the site is a steep slope descending from 64 to 34 feet in elevation. The site is also environmentally sensitive, being entirely within the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Overlay District with portions designated as Special Flood Hazard Areas.
Staff recommend that approval of the application come with the condition that ensures existing vegetation remains in place at the top of the slope and that a more strict “Type D” vegetative buffer be installed to protect these features.
Staff and the applicant’s representative specified at Wednesday’s Planning Commission meeting, in response to concerns raised by members of the public, that the special exception requests do not increase the density of the development from the 12 units allowed per acre in the Creative Maker zoning district.
They also do not set a precedent for allowing developers to bypass the city’s zoning regulations, staff said.
Kate Schwartz, the city’s historic resources planner, said in response to a question from Commission Chair David Durham that the Form-Based Code for the Princess Anne Corridor is “intended to shape the built environment, but it is also written with the understanding that there is greater flexibility than might be required to still meet the intent of the code,” which is to “foster the redevelopment of commercial corridors … and where future development will be characterized primarily by redevelopment and infill.”
Durham emphasized that in the case, the developer is “not not adhering to city regulations, they’re using them.”
The Planning Commission held a first public hearing on this application in December. Since then, in response to public comments, the applicant has updated the general development plan to include a bike rack and reduce the height of the five units fronting on Princess Anne Street from four to three-stories.
The application also includes the adaptive reuse of the building at 2015 Princess Anne Street, which was constructed circa 1939 as Limerick’s Richfield Service Station, is identified as a Character Structure in the Small Area Plan for this part of the city, and is currently vacant. The intended reuse would be as office space, according to the applicant’s narrative.
At Wednesday’s second public hearing, Kelly Hunt, the owner of Mason-Dixon Cafe, which is located across the street from the proposed development, spoke in favor of the plan. She said the parcel in its current undeveloped state is detrimental to her business, since it often hosts transient people “utilizing the overgrown and very neglected property for encampments, drug use, other concerning activities.”
She said she is not worried about her business being “dwarfed” in size by taller buildings across the street and that her “priority is supporting efforts to clean up the Princess Anne Corridor.”
Other citizens sent in letters to be read aloud during the public hearing. These letters expressed opposition to the project, describing an overabundance of residential development in the area and concern about the reasoning behind the special exception requests.
“Developer profit should not take priority over the city’s small town foot print, its character, its identity, and its history,” wrote Ralph Joseph.
Paula Chow questioned, “What are the true special needs of this project? Is it so the developer can squeeze in five more houses?”
Responding to this concern, both Schwartz and the applicant’s representative noted that the proposed density is no more than is allowed by-right by the Creative Maker District zoning.
Also in response to comments alleging that the project is attempting to by-pass the Unified Development Ordinance’s requirement that that 25% of a mixed-use development be used for commercial purposes, Durham asked Schwartz to clarify that the project is not proposing a mixed-used development.
“When we discuss ‘mixed use’ here, we’re simply saying there is a mix of uses on the site,” Schwartz said.
The application will next go before City Council for final approval or denial.
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